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Apple has been criticized quite frequently for issues surrounding its iPhone developer program and how apps are approved or rejected for sale via the App Store. Though Apple has essentially avoided answering any of these criticisms so far—it actually abruptly ended a WWDC session on the App Store without the usual Q&A session this summer—senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller addressed some of those criticisms directly in an e-mail to a popular Mac blog.

Earlier this week, Daring Fireball had fiercely criticized Apple for seemingly censoring a dictionary app called Ninjawords. The problem, as the story went, was that the developers of Ninjawords had to censor a number of words form the app to gain approval, and even then was required to carry a 17+ rating. However, Schiller explained, the actual events were quite different.

"Apple did not censor the content in this developer's application and Apple did not reject this developer’s application for including references to common swear words," wrote Schiller." Ninjawords uses data from Wiktionary.org for its definitions, which includes common swear words as well as "a number of offensive 'urban slang' terms... that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable." It is because of these other terms that Ninjawords was apparently rejected. Apple noted in the rejection some of the vulgar terms, and suggested that the developer resubmit the app once parental controls were in place (back in May, that was an upcoming feature of iPhone OS 3.0).

"The Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented," Schiller explained. "Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. Even though the developer chose to censor some terms, there still remained enough vulgar terms that it required a parental control rating of 17+."

It seems that, ultimately, the rejections that caused Ninjawords to continually censor for certain words weren't strictly Apple's fault. However, the situation does highlight the fact that there are clearly some issues with communication—both between Apple and iPhone developers, as well as between what must be a legion of App Store reviewers. Lack of communication is probably one of the most common problems cited by developers we have spoken to on the subject, and unfortunately, open communication isn't one of Apple's strong points.

However, the situation is something that Apple is working to address. "Apple's goals remain aligned with customers and developers—to create an innovative applications platform on the iPhone and iPod touch and to assist many developers in making as much great software as possible for the iPhone App Store," Schiller wrote. "While we may not always be perfect in our execution of that goal, our efforts are always made with the best intentions, and if we err we intend to learn and quickly improve."

We are both surprised and delighted that Apple has made such a public and forthright admission that there are issues, and that they are actively looking to address them. There is definitely room for improvement—clear and consistent rejection policies, more open communication with developers, and improvements to the iTunes Connect tool are some examples—and we look forward to seeing the solutions Apple comes up with.